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Brian Gutowski's avatar

The first indicator of our republic’s shaky ground will be in next year’s midterms and how the president reacts if Democrats take one or both legislatures. Or if the fix is truly in-place that we no longer have free and fair elections. The fact that it is a question says a lot about our country now.

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DENNIS B MURPHY's avatar

From the Federalist Paper 68 by Hamilton. The founders didn't guard against it well enough!

Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one querter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union?

But the convention have guarded against all danger of this sort, with the most provident and judicious attention. They have not made the appointment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment.

The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union,

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PBJ's avatar

A different kind of merit - $$$$

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